“August 5th.* Trains leave tonight. I am on a train as guard boy when they ask us where we are going and we tell them France, they don’t believe us. The Co. don’t leave til tomorrow. August 6th. Co. left Washington barracks for New York. No Pullman on this trip, we had a lot of boiled eggs but alas they were no good. We ate none of them. August 7th. Co. reached New York at 6 AM, this date after which we took a tug across to Hoboken, NJ. Sailed for France at 8 PM. August 8th. We are on the deep blue sea. Watched the lights from NY and the good old U.S.A. as long as we could that night.”

 From the diary of
Pfc. Calice C. Cummings, 1st Engineers Train
From the Col. Robert R. McCormick Research Center

*Units of the First Division continued to travel overseas throughout the summer, including the 1st Engineers in August.

 

Cummings 1 Cummings 2 St. Naz

Diary: See left    Photo: Troop transport ship entering the harbor at St. Nazaire, France, on June 27, 1917. The ship carried elements of the First Infantry Division from the docks of Hoboken, New Jersey. Signal Corps Photograph courtesy of the Col. Robert R. McCormick Research Center.